


(Life is Just) An Extremely Long Road

by SleeplessInGeneral



Series: Maybe Other People [1]
Category: The Wicked + The Divine
Genre: Fluff, Future Fic, I love both those ships so much and they deserve better than the source material gave them, Idiots in Love, M/M, Mentions of past abuse, Other, Somebody Lives/Not Everyone Dies, also some angst, but this fic deals with therapy and abuse so do with it what you will, the only ones truly dead are the manipulative bitch goddess and her alt-right neckbeard lackey, this was such an extremely self-indulgent thing to write
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-12-22
Updated: 2020-12-22
Packaged: 2021-03-11 02:54:33
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,235
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28227966
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/SleeplessInGeneral/pseuds/SleeplessInGeneral
Summary: This was a regular Friday night conversation for the two of them. The 2014 Pantheon, at least those who remained, would often gather up once or twice a month to hang out and just be together at a date agreed on by the majority, but Friday nights were Zahid and Cam's alone.
Relationships: Baal/Inanna (The Wicked + The Divine), Baphomet/Dionysus (The Wicked + The Divine)
Series: Maybe Other People [1]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/2067828
Comments: 2
Kudos: 3





	(Life is Just) An Extremely Long Road

**Author's Note:**

> And here you can see the result of me hyperfixating on wicdiv for two months and getting attached to Baphomet and Inanna almost immediately. I hope I did them good. (Or at least, didn't fuck up major time.)

"Tired of Marian yet?" 

"No, never! Who could be tired of such a _lovely_ girl?"

"Didn't think you'd be the snarky one, Zahid."

"There's a lot you still don't know about me, Cam."

"Oh yeah, after this much time?"

"You're the one still surprised by me here."

"Should I ask Valentine to fill in on the missing pieces?"

"You wouldn't _dare_ , honey."

This was a regular Friday night conversation for the two of them. The 2014 Pantheon, at least those who remained, would often gather up once or twice a month to hang out and just be together at a date agreed on by the majority, but Friday nights were Zahid and Cam's alone. They started this tradition soon after the recurrence ended, at first to bond over their losses, then it became just a regular hangout where they both got a chance to vent all their frustrations with sexuality, gender and everything in between, with no risk of judgment. Cam encouraged Zahid to talk to Valentine about polyamory, and in return Zahid encouraged him to talk to Umar and Marian about their relationships (with each separately), and then…

Well, then they just kept talking. About everything. From roleplaying games to orgies to what it was like to live as just a head and everything they could find in between. And when the conversations moved to Skype, they also added the general weekly update on what their partners were doing, how the lockdown yet again affected Zahid and Valentine's wedding plans, and many cameos from Cam and Umar's three cats and Valentine's two dogs (and occasionally Umar and Valentine themselves), which was never unwelcome.

Well… most of the time at least.

"Is she at least being pleasant enough to work with?" Cam asks right before shoving a forkful of saag paneer into his mouth. The ragdoll on his lap looks up, as if begging for a piece, and Zahid rolls their eyes with a sad smile.

"At least that… she's not a fan of most of my ideas, but I managed to stop her from asking to perform down the tube again. She's not a god anymore, she can make peace with it and move on."

"All that to protect the integrity of a dress."

"A dress that I designed and would rather not get torn up by the rails, yes."

"The great and wonderful Zahid's grand plan is revealed, then. It's not about the safety of your client or the legality of performing at the tube, it's about keeping the dress intact."

"I'm not the one looking into the legality of things, I'm only the costume designer."

"I'll drink to that, mate."

"Cheers, then." Zahid raises their cup of wine, watching as Victoria — the ragdoll on Cam's lap — catches a piece of paneer that fell off of her dad's fork as he took a swig from his beer. "I'll admit I was surprised, five years ago, that you didn't go back to performing. It seemed like you loved it."

"It's whatever, really… college and game design were always more important."

"Don't I know it… Enki, no!" Zahid jumps up for a moment, putting down their wine glass on the desk in frustration, then pick up the golden retriever who — up until now — was on a mission to eat from the costume designer's bowl of pasta. "You literally just had dinner, bud. Did your dad not feed you yet? Do I need to tell him off?"

The dog doesn't seem to mind, turning instead to lick his parent's cheek. His tail wags right at the camera, making Cam choke on his beer. 

"He's worse about food than Hardestadt. Are you sure he knows where his food bowl is?"

"I still can't believe you called your cat _Hardestadt_."

"It fit the theme we were going with. It's not like we named this one Victoria after the queen after all. Now answer my question. Does Enki know where his food bowl is?"

"He does," Zahid laughs before turning to baby-talking at the dog and kissing his head. "He's just a spoiled little baby."

"A spoiled little baby who hogs all your alone time, gotcha."

"You're complaining about a dog, and then have a giant cat on your lap at all times."

"She just does that automatically! Her brothers are two little shits, always running around and trying to break things, you've seen them in action. At least one cat in this house cares enough to pay me any attention."

"...Cameron, let's go back to Marian, okay?" Cam groans and rolls his eyes. "She asked that you'll join her, as… some last hurrah or whatever."

"Oh, I'll join her, alright. Down in Hell."

"Cam, honey, it's been years now—"

"I _know_ it's been years. But you seem to forget everything she did."

"And what did she do? I'm seriously asking, she said you two had some disagreements and you told me nothing."

For a good few minutes, Cam just doesn't talk. Zahid embraces the silence. Lets their friend have his time to… think, what to say, how to say it. They still sit with their cameras open, eating in silence, occasionally being interrupted by Hardestadt making noise over something or another that bothers him. Valentine comes in for a moment, stopping to pay attention to his fiancé and say hello to the nerd on the screen, then leaves with the dogs on a walk. And Cam and Zahid still sit in silence.

Some moments Zahid could swear Cam is about to say something, but it doesn't happen for a relatively long time, and then Cam takes a long sip from a glass of water before starting to talk. 

"I'll admit I wasn't… a good boyfriend to her. There's no… excuse, for cheating…"

"I know, honey. It's not a reason not to see her—"

"But there's also no excuse for physical violence against your partner. I can't… I'm sorry, I really can't." He downs his cup of water in one go. His face falls, going even paler than he usually is. "I was an awful boyfriend, but…"

"I think I get it now. You don't have to keep going, it's—"

"I feel like if I saw her again in person I could hurt her. Maybe… maybe sometime in the future it'll be better, we talked about it, I should be okay with it then. I've been through four years of fucking therapy because of her, I should be okay with it! I should… I should be over it, but I…"

"You're valid for not being over it. Your feelings are valid. Cam, honey, look at me."

There's another moment of silence. The tension is different this time, Cam trying his best to keep from crying, but the resolution is all the same.

Cameron breaks it. Again. One look at Zahid, looking at him so affectionate and caring through the screen, and a very necessary headbutt from Victoria who rubs her head against his cheek, and he just breaks down crying. 

"I'm not over it…"

"I know. Do you want me to validate, reassure, or distract you?"

"I… validate please…"

"Okay… honey, you are loved. Umar loves you to death and back, you have Valentine and me, and Eleanor, and Laura and Cass and—"

"That's reassurance, not validation," Cam manages to let out with minimal choking. "Zahid, please."

"Right, sorry."

"It's… it's fine…"

"It's okay... to not be over trauma. Four, five years is still fresh in my opinion. I may not know what she did to you, and you don't have to tell me, but whatever it was isn't excusable as ‘just had some disagreements'. You are completely valid to still feel like this. It's okay."

"What's okay?" Valentine's voice comes from the doorway, making Cam sniffle up and try to hide his tears, going as far as to bury his face in Victoria's fur. "I go away for twenty minutes and miss the whole show, apparently."

"...honey, do you mind if I leave you with Valentine for a moment?" Zahid almost whispers, a hand on his headset. "He might be better at this whole validation thing."

Cam just nods, shaking, and the headset passes hands as Zahid disappears from the frame. 

"What's wrong, Punderworld?" Valentine asks as soon as Cam raises his head. "Your shop's going out of business?"

"I… I'm fine. We were just talking about Marian, it's fine."

"It's not fine if it got you crying. Come on, spill. What did the bitch do this time?"

"It's… it doesn't matter. It happened five years ago, Campbell, let it go."

"Hey, it's still legit to get upset about. Do you think I don't want to fucking die anymore, now that the bitch who made me… you know, is dead?" Valentine catches himself glaring after a moment, softening his expression nearly immediately. "I'm sorry."

"It's… it's okay, don't apologize."

"...dude, I wanna kill myself every single day. As soon as I open my eyes, I ask myself why am I still here. And you know what my therapist told me to do?"

"No, I do not. Enlighten me, sir."

"Good to know trauma hasn't killed your snark along with your soul."

"Any time, buddy."

"My therapist just… showed me a tumblr post about staying alive for outside reasons. I'm alive for Zahid. I'm alive for our dogs. I'm alive for that fucking tree in our back yard that nobody's ever bothered to look after before we moved in. Maybe one day I'll learn to live for myself, trauma, manipulation and all. But until then, I live for others."

"...so you're saying what exactly?" A loud noise interrupts Cam as he's about to finish his question, making Valentine jump. "Thank you, Beckett. Very nice of you to finally join this conversation."

"It's good to see you too, Beckett," Valentine laughs, keeping his voice down. 

"So by teaching me all this death thesis you're trying to tell me… what?"

"At the end of the day, I'm building my own resolve to keep living. It's hard, and it hurts like a bitch, but at the end of the day I'm learning to survive on my own again. Are you trying to validate yourself for feeling like this? Trying to learn?"

"‘Trying' is a big word…"

"You still gotta try, Punderworld. Be careful, I'm going to hold you accountable for that from now on. I'm dead serious."

"Gotcha… so you're gonna be my second therapist from now on."

"Don't try me, Cameron. I might actually do it."

"I would love to see you try."

"You're on, nerd."

* * *

"Hello there," Cam calls from the kitchen as the door opens, and an exhausted and dripping wet Umar drags himself in, takes off his mask and heads over to the kitchen. "I made butter chicken."

"You made butter chicken?" Umar snorts, stopping by to check the stove — empty, nothing cooking, as expected. "Can you even cook chicken?"

"Fine, I _ordered_ butter chicken. It's in the fridge. But look what a good housewife I can be!"

"That you can. I never doubted that. Honestly, I don't know how I could've picked any better," he chuckles and pulls Cam in for a kiss. The contact makes Cam melt. It's been a long day without Umar... "My handsome, stupid, excellent house-husband."

"House _wife_ , please, I take great pride in this title."

"Sure. How was your day?"

"We got new figurines," Cam says, smiling even wider now. "I bought some dragons and mimics, and I'm going to paint them tomorrow. Do you want to help me?"

"I'll probably do a terrible job, but sure."

"You're not that bad at painting! I'll show you how to do it!"

"Alright… I trust you."

"You better."

"And how did the call with Zahid go?"

"It went… it went," he sighs, trying to cling to Umar even more. "He's helping Marian with her next online concert. I… can I ask you for a favor?"

"Any time. Can I just… have my hand so I could eat?"

"Hmm… fine." He lets go with a frown, turning instead to take some ice cream out of the freezer, and passes a styrofoam container from the fridge over to Umar. "But you owe me."

"I'll hold you after I eat and shower. Is that a fair deal?"

"Yeah, I'll take it."

Cam finishes a whole tub of ice cream by the time Umar is finally ready to sit down with him and talk. They've both… changed, he thinks, over the last five years. His therapist calls it "matured". He calls it learning to live with the nightmares. Cam's dark circles have grown darker and Umar sometimes swears he can see gray hairs in his beard, and some nights are so bad that either one of them has to call in sick to work or school for the other. 

They know they're not alone. Eleanor and Valentine are the most vocal about their struggles, both of them admitting themselves to psychiatric care for a while after everything ended and talking to everyone they could about their therapy journeys, and sometimes Cam would catch Jon or Aruna nearing mental breakdown during the monthly hangouts. Umar is the best at hiding it all, being a people pleaser like he is would do it to a person, but even he opened up to the group time and time again about everything he's going through.

Or maybe it was just to Cam, but his boyfriend could always tell somehow. Umar calls it a "special skill". Cam just calls it "having spent so long around you that I can just _tell_ , by the tone of your voice, it's not magic or anything".

None of this knowledge ever changed the feeling of being alone, that dark, sinking feeling of spiraling deeper and deeper into your own little Hell.

But it's okay. They're going to get through this. They've already gotten this far, and life is not a difficult terrain. Just an extremely long road. 

"You owe me the favor," Umar says as he goes to sit down on the couch, making Cam snap from spacing out.

"I'm coming to ask for it."

Hardestadt takes over Umar's lap as Cam goes over, bringing another tub of ice cream and two spoons with him. But Umar still pulls him closer and hugs him and starts playing with Cam's hair somewhat. He's been growing it out for a few years now, and while the Kylo Ren jokes at work sometimes make him want to shave it all off, Umar swears it's a good look on him, so fuck those arseholes at work.

Umar's fingers in Cam's hair feel relaxing, almost making him fall asleep. Too bad he has to actually open up about his fears now. What a shame. 

"So… I need you to hold me accountable," Cam says with a sigh, letting Victoria climb back onto his lap.

"You need me to hold you accountable."

"I do."

"What did you do…?"

"...will you be upset if I said it's not something that I did, but rather something I might do in the future?"

"I don't think I'd be upset," Umar muses, twirling a bit of Cam's hair around his finger. "Concerned, yes. Upset, not at all."

"...Marian asked me to be at her online concert. Like… perform, at her online concert."

"Okay… sounds like fun."

"It _does_ , right? And that's the problem!" Cam whines, wiggling somewhat, startling the cats. "I _want_ to perform again. I want it _so bad_."

"But…? There's a but in here, right?"

"...I feel like if I see her face again I will lose it. I feel like the next time I see her I will either melt into a puddle of despair or go right to her flat and kick her fucking arse."

"I thought you two talked things through…?"

"We did. And I got over it, I'm… mostly over it by now. At least I should be… I, I want to be over it. But then things come up in my head and I remember everything she did. And all I can do is try to suppress the need to bash her face in."

Cam chokes for a second, his face getting warm and red. So Umar moves the cats and helps him lay down his head on Umar's lap. He's holding the ice cream tub to his forehead for some reason, probably so he won't have to get up and get a cold towel, and the act in itself makes Cam laugh.

Laugh, then choke again, then start crying for the second time today.

"I do love her still… she was the first person who shared my interests, I can't not… but she scares me so much too. I'm not sure I can handle it."

"I want so bad to perform at her concert with her," Cam manages to say at last, after a long while of trying to calm down while Umar strokes his forehead and feeds him ice cream, somehow, laying down still. "But I can't guarantee that I can keep my anger to myself."

Umar lets it all sink in, silently waiting for Cam to calm down. He loves this man so much, he thinks, but by _god_ do his emotions take over sometimes. 

It's okay. He loves him during those moments too.

"I can be there for support," he finally says, then smiles and leans down to kiss Cam's forehead. "And I can make sure you don't just leave in the middle of the night to go strangle a woman on the other side of the city. But I'm not responsible for your anger. That's on you."

"Yeah, yeah," Cam snorts, finally allowing himself to fully relax. "I can… I'll talk to my therapist about the anger thing."

"And also you make an effort."

" _And also_ I make an effort, yeah. I promise."

"Thank you."

"No problem. I love you, don't I?" Cam smiles. Umar smiles back.

All… is not well, but it's probably going to be.

* * *

"...you know what this feels like to me right now?" Cam asks about an hour later. They're cuddling on the couch now, Umar as the big spoon, and they're watching some mindless cartoon or another. Cam likes this one. Umar never understood the point of shows about talking horses.

"What does it feel like to you?" Umar asks back, trying to concentrate on the episode plot — _is this character supposed to be Britney Spears?_ — and clearly failing.

"It feels like that one time in our Fall of London campaign when Alice, you know, Marian's character, decided to fuck over some Antigen agents by promising them that she'll point them to where the Queen is, and then…"

Umar pauses the episode as Cam goes off, clearly too excited to keep watching now. There's a thing about Cam that just lights up as soon as he starts talking about his games, or his comics, or any other thing that Umar doesn't know anything about other than Cam likes it. And he loves listening. Taking it all in, slowly learning everything about those interests, allowing his dear boyfriend to be happy — genuinely, truly _happy_.

They've hit some dark places, alright. But the light coming from Cam's face – maybe because of the television still being on, most likely because of how stupidly in love Umar is with this boy – is worth it all. It's just how life is, after all, isn't it?


End file.
